Sobhan-e-Noor

Historical Communities of Yazd

Mohammad Hassan Khademezade

Translation In To English by Zoheir Mottaki

In the name of the most Almighty

Acknowledgements

The present book is the outcome of three and half years of
continuous efforts inthe domain of
historical city of Yazd. Such a research, studied the
boundaries, formation, development, transformation and changes
within the city.

Many of our communities today are the result of population
growth or immigration demanding new appropriate habitats,
However many others undergone certain changes nominally or
anthropologically.

Early illuminations of this book dates back to several years
ago. At that time, consulting architectural firms started to
work on the urban fabric of Yazd mostly based on their academic
backgrounds and exogenous provided criteria, which were mostly
misinterpreted codes of western studies about the city. In this
respect, intervention attitudes began to prescribe certain
proposal among which was the division of the historical city
into different regions that had no endogenous correspondent and
led to numerous complications and urban predicaments later.
Allegedly, new urban terms and concepts permitted the
interveners to disregard the actual boundaries of the existing
communities and their integrity. Such a trend led to newly
fabricated boundaries and centers in which undermined the prior
community structures. Furthermore, these new civic centers and
elements were unable to respond to the community inhabitants'
needs and demands since they were defined to serve bigger
metropolitan regions than to the Yazd city structural units. As
a result, these new layouts, planning, zonings, and forced
service distribution per capita transformed the
socio-economical structures of the historic city, which were
organically formed gradually during the course of history, gave
rise to the impasse of obliteration. That is why there are no
traces of some communities anymore, which will be introduced
later in this book. Faced with such a mischievous approach, the
greatest concern throughout the book was to restore and
recognize the historical structures of urban divisions of the
city and research their genesis and historical unfolding to
provide a reference for future studies. Such an end demanded a
great deal of fieldwork to determine the boundaries of each
community. At the beginning, much time was dedicated to
recognize exact edges enabling every community to be clearly
identified.

However, after several months of study and research, it was
found that such exact and clearcut boundaries could not be
achieved and would not be beneficial either. In fact, it was
possible to classify every single residential unit in one of
the neighboring communities based on social interest. Finally,
we came to this conclusion that the Community boundaries would
be best described in a hybrid continuum of urban elements
rather than a clear-cut line. That was why though to some
extent exact edges were recognized, they were set aside and not
applied due to lack of efficiency. In its place, the proximity
of the community passages and a bright sphere around the
community center were depicted.

The basic criteria to select communities were the written
inscriptions including historical books, endowment's documents,
itineraries, and still existing popular urban centers (field
research). In certain cases, several names were noted in
historical documents, which were unknown through the city and
not anymore recognized by dwellers. Therefore, a chapter at the
end of the book is dedicated to the name of these vanished
communities. Since the book preparation was considerably
time-consuming, many people were involved hat I wish the
research outcome to some extent compensated their
contributions. I would like to appreciate and thank them
personally who are as the following according to the
process:

Mr. Susan Azhdar with whom the field research initiated and
Mr. Mahmoud Pourserajian Who accompanied us later. Alireza
Zāre' Bidoki, Ismael Zāre' Khormizi who greatly and kindly
accomplished the digital preparation. I appreciate Mrs. Fatemeh
Islami; Mrs. Fatemeh Danesh-Yazdi and Mrs. Na'imeh Hakim, who
helped me with the documents extraction process. I am thankful
to Mojtaba Farahmand, Majid Khademradeh and Hamid Khani for
their cooperation and feel great respect for the outstanding
aerial photos preparation to Mr. Khebreh-Dast.

I am also grateful to my dear friend Mr. Ardashir Shokoufeh,
the head of Sobhan-e-Noor publishing who really helped
throughout the demanding process.

Here I feel necessary to acknowledge and express gratitude
to the devoted and conscientious efforts of Zoheir Mottaki Who
due to my repetitious revisions went into great lenght to
translate the book severally and devise an English glossary
with such an accuracy and proficiency from the beginning to the
end.

At the end, I am thankful God the almighty that though
certain bureaucratic predicaments were in the way, the book is
finally realized.

Here I would like to make an apology to the professionals
and academics for any possible shortcomings and humbly ask for
your comments for future improvements.

Mohammad-Hasan Khadem-Zadeh

(Source:Mohammad Hassan Khademzade:Historical Communities of Yazd,Translation
In To English by Zoheir Mottaki,First
Published in 2007;Circulation:
1386,Publishing: Sobhan-e-NoorCultural Heritage Base Of Historical Yazd City,
Achnowledgements)